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CDC says average ER wait time nears one hour

Healthcare Security Weekly, August 11, 2008

The average time that hospital patients wait in the emergency department for treatment has increased from about 38 minutes to almost an hour over the past decade, according to new statistics released August 6 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The overall average waiting time to see a physician in the emergency department was nearly 56 minutes, the CDC found. The increase is due to supply and demand, according to Stephen Pitts, MD, the lead author of the CDC’s report. “There are more people arriving at the [emergency rooms] ERs. And there are fewer ERs,” Pitts, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Atlanta's Emory University, told the Associated Press.

The results of the study are based on a national survey of 362 hospital emergency departments. To read more, click here.

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